Wiki Loves Monuments – share open-licensed images

We often take it for granted that our beautiful locations, listed buildings and monuments will always be there… something that can never be fully guaranteed. That’s why it’s so important that we take the opportunity to document our cultural heritage now for future generations before it is too late.

“Over 12,000 historic places are listed by Parks Canada, but only 20% of these places have freely licensed images to illustrate Wikipedia articles…” (Wiki Loves Monuments 2017 in Canada)

Wiki Loves Monuments

The world’s largest photo competition, Wiki Loves Monuments, takes place for the whole of September each year but you can take pictures all year round. After days out, weekend breaks and holidays at home & abroad, there will be gigabytes of pics taken in recent months and years. These could remain on your memory card or be shared to Commons in September and help illustrate Wikipedia for the benefit of all. This is because articles with pictures are at least 20-30% more likely to be read. Entry is free and the best pics will win a prize.

The handy Wiki Loves Monuments UK tool which shows places (indicated with a red dot) that require a picture.

Wiki Loves Monuments – dynamic map of Edinburgh showing listed buildings requiring an image (in red).

You just take a quick look at the map, take a pic and upload. It takes seconds and is the easiest way to take part.

WLM map tool – Use this tool if you want to search for addresses, either in UK or further afield.

Don’t wait till it’s too late, do your bit today!

More to play around with:

  • Wiki Loves Monuments 2017 in Canada
  • View the 2046 images uploaded for Wiki Loves Monuments in this year’s competition in Canada (in Scotland we uploaded 2099 images).
  • The Wikidata Game – Missing Images – An item of data on Wikidata has no image but the Wikipedia page does. This game just asks you to check the image depicts what the item is about.
  • WikiShootMe – find places near you that are not represented online with a pic.
  • Explore local cultural heritage with Monumental.
  • Use Flickr? Why not try the Flickr2Commons tool to import your images easily into Wikimedia Commons on an open licence? That way they can be shared for an audience of millions to enjoy with detailed metrics on their reuse.